1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to malware detection and in particular to detecting and blocking transmission of sensitive information using dynamic data tainting.
2. Description of the Background Art
Computer networks and systems have become indispensable tools for modern data communication. Terabits of information are communicated by computer networks throughout the world. Much of this information is, to some degree, confidential and its protection is required. However, security threats have become increasingly able to evade conventional signature or pattern based detection techniques. In addition to viruses, additional types of malicious software (“malware”), such as cross-site scripting, have become increasingly common methods for accessing sensitive information.
Cross-site scripting is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications. The web applications inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. For example, a client device accesses a website generated by execution of the web application and the web application transmits a client-side script to the client device. When executed by the client device, the client-side script behaves maliciously. For example, the client-side script accesses sensitive information on the client-side and attempts to transmit this sensitive information to a server-side device. Client-side scripting is increasing hard for network security applications and devices to detect with the advent of increased use of dynamic code (e.g., Hypertext Transfer Protocol and JavaScript) in web applications.